Are you happier with no friends or social contacts?

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I find myself in a catch 22.

When I go to almost any social event, I spend the entire time looking forward to it being over. But if I don't have social contact, I feel lonely and depressed.

I am quite content and comfortable with my own company.

To correct my post above some, while I am content and happy to be by myself, I am also happy that I have someone to game and chat with.

I suck at it, but I'd rather keep it minimalist than eliminate it. I don't need much.

My best school years are also the least socially active of all -- to the point people would mistook me for a mute and barely bother remembering anyone else's names and faces.
It was even better than popularity, even with positive kinda of attention in my experience. So, yes.

Anyway, I sought both -- only to find what I actually want.

Oh, and I'm an ambivert with inclinations leaning towards introversion. It depends on my mood if I choose to be social or not.


And yes... Less social contacts DO mean less people to bother or to be bothered by the expectations. Less expectations would also mean less 'stress', and things to deal with.

But if one wants to be 'happy' with being in a social relationship:
It's either on arm's reach with for fun-relationships with reputation management to deal with (a very, very mild and less strenuous version of 'masking' -- the kind that NTs usually do in order to merge their personalities and be more compatible with the social culture -- it's a something more than just conforming and mimicking, it's something internalized, as opposed to socialize to 'survive'... So far that's how I could explain it, but I'm getting sidetracked here.)
Or find the right person or group of people who can accept you as you are to have deeper connections with that requires either good judgment of character or luck and two-way trust.

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[quote="SplendidSnail"]I find myself in a catch 22.

I'm in that same scenario as, I would like to have friends but,often I'm very awkward in most but not all social scenarios therefore, I simply tend to be distant in case of screwing up socially.

I have a few friends but I see them only once a year, if not less often. I like to be alone and it doesn't bother me to live far away from everybody. But when I meet my friends I enjoy their company too.

I am 38 and not diagnosed with autism. As a child I absolutely hated being forced to be social. Around age five or six mum would send me out to play with neighbourhood kids and I would sit in the basement and cry for hours to just avoid having to go out and play. As an adult, I love having the choice of being social or not. I really revel in being able to not be social. Saying that I have 5 close friends spread in different corners of the world and if the opportunity to spend time with them arose I would take it straight away. Just spent 7 hours on a train to get 6 hrs talking to one of my best friends and it was amazing. But we didn't really chit chat at all, it was all discussion of philosophy, life, politics, religion and the kind of stuff I like talking about. It is interesting to me that all my good friends have been male. I find it much much much harder socialising with women. It absolutely exhausts me. So, whilst there is nothing better than being social on ones own terms and with the right people I absolutely dread being social simply for the purpose of being social.

I absolutely dread being social simply for the purpose of being social.[/quote]

That absolutely perfect sense by all accounts

^^ "Other-directed" is a good one too.

I've commented elsewhere that I didn't have friends, I had a user community, for the most part, throughout my life. Realized it quite a while ago.

Made peace with it, because it seems to be true for many people, not just me or others with ASDs... the term "marriage of convenience", for instance, exists for very good reasons.

Also noted previously elsewhere, a quote from Josephine Tey, to the effect that people who lead "full lives" generally find that those lives are full primarily of other people's demands. She saw it too.

These days I try to be a good acquaintance and a good neighbor, and that suffices. If I need to be around people (my speech gets rusty even though my thinking doesn't) I'll visit the local grocery, gas station, cafe and greet the staff (whom I know, and like; it's a small town, but with some nifty people in it). I have a married cousin, and he and his wife and I stay in touch.

And now there's here.

^^ I like your thinking on this, being social makes more sense if there is an identified underlying rationale; an information exchange with meaning. The social exchanges that cause me the most stress are the ones I find meaningless. Picking kids up from school and waiting in the playground is the worst. I so want to bring a book and read whilst I wait so I don't have to talk or 'not talk' but still haven't been strong enough to send that anti-social signal.

It is a luxury to be able to choose how social we want to be. As a child I never had it, with a super social single-mother, now I have it sometimes. In the midst of a family of my own I get patches of time but there are few days I don't yearn for more time flat on my back staring at the sky.

^^ Good Lord, woman. I don't know how you do it. My hat's off to you, or would be, if I had one. My avatar's hat's off to you.